The Case

Memory is a funny thing. Top Secret! was released in 1984 and my best
friend was a projectionist at a local movie theater. This meant two things: lots
of beer and lots of free movies, over and over again. Back in the day I thought
Top Secret! was hysterical, as in bust-a-gut funny. Returning to it
today, I think I laughed three or four times. I don't really know what about it
or me has changed but it's a shame because the concept is still one filled with
possibilities. The plot takes all those James Dean-influenced Elvis musicals and
crosses them with the cold war action/espionage thrillers of the '60s, twisting
them inside out. On top of that, Top Secret! was the latest of the
laugh-a-minute type comedies from Jim Abrahams and the Zucker Brothers, the
minds behind Airplane!, Police Squad!, and The Kentucky Fried Movie. I'm
sorry to say that looking at the movie today I found the jokes, sight gags, and
puns all to be a little forced. There are a couple of good laughs to be sure and
the movie rolls along with a silly grin on its face but it never reaches the
lunatic highs of Airplane!

If Airplane! had the bland Robert Hayes in its lead roll, Top
Secret! does one-up things by featuring an excellent singing and dancing
turn from Val Kilmer (The Doors) as rock
star Nick Rivers. Kilmer shows here why people got so excited by him in the
'80s. Between this and Real Genius, it
looked like the sky was the limit for him and his career. He gets the tone of
the movie just right and if Top Secret! is at all successful it's because
of him. Ingrid Bergman lookalike Lucy Gutteridge is less convincing as Hillary
Flammond, but she certainly manages to hold her own. While not having the
greatest range in the world, Gutteridge is able to get the joke while
maintaining a sense of lightness with her role. She has good comedic timing
while looking great. With that said, the success of Airplane! was never
really found in its lead actors but rather in its deadpan supporting cast. It's
there that the former film blows Top Secret! away. With Airplane!,
we had Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Barbara Billingsley, and of
course, Leslie Nielsen very much getting the gag and helping to push the film
along. In Top Secret!, we get Omar Sharif (Bridge Deluxe with Omar
Sharif), Jeremy Kemp (Dr. Terror's House of Horrors), Michael Gough
(Batman and Robin), and Peter
Cushing (Frankenstein Created
Woman) instead. Sharif looks lost, Kemp looks bored, Gough looks like he
waiting around for his paycheck, and Cushing appears to be the only one who got
the joke. I don't know if things would have turned out better had actors more in
tune with their surroundings had been cast, but as it stands, far too much of
Top Secret! just falls flat. So much for that memory.

Moving on to the disc, in many ways it shapes up as a typical Paramount
catalogue release but in a couple of key ways, it's very much different.

First up is the anamorphic transfer of Top Secret!, which retains the
original 1.85:1 aspect ratio seen in the theaters. To say that the video is a
letdown is a major understatement. It is pretty obvious that the source material
was in poor shape because the picture is full of dirt, specks, and grain.
Compound that with the overall softness of the image to begin with and those
imperfections only make things look a lot worse. Add to that all the colors
appear to be dull and washed out, while fleshtones don't look to be a whole lot
better, and you are left with one of the weaker transfers I've seen in a major
studio release in some time.

On the sound end, Paramount has taken the original mono soundtrack and mixed
it to achieve a new 5.1 Dolby Surround track. Thankfully, the sound comes off
better than the video. On the whole, I found the front soundscape to be nicely
balanced with decent separation. Rear surround were not much of a factor but we
are talking about a screen comedy and not some action opus. The mix held little
in the way of background distortion but it did struggle a bit with the high end
and the transitions from loud to soft was not carried off as well as they could
have been. Still, it's not a bad sounding remix. For me though it does beg the
question, why bother to fix something that wasn't really broken instead of doing
the right thing and cleaning up the problems with the image? I happen to like a
good mono mix. Criterion and Anchor Bay clean up mono mixes all the time and
they sound warm and natural. I just don't see the need for a lot of these
remixes and think that the funds would be better off spent elsewhere. Like
fixing the damn video. Your mileage may vary.

With the below average video and the remixed sound we are talking about the
standard, run-of-the-mill Paramount release. So imagine my surprise when I
looked at the back cover art and found the treasure trove, at least for
Paramount, of special content.

First up is an excellent audio commentary with Jim Abrahams, the Zucker
Brothers, producers Jim Davison and Hunt Lowry, and moderated by Fred Rubin. If
you have listened to an Abrahams/Zucker commentary before you know what to
expect and they don't disappoint here. It is in fact one of the rare cases where
it's worth owning the disc for the commentary track as opposed to the film
itself. Where the movie falls flat, the alternate audio tracks pretty much
crackles with humorous tidbits and funny jokes. I like to call it the "beer
drinking" style of commentary, meaning these people sound like the kind of
guys you would love to spend a night sitting with around a table swinging brews
and talking about flicks. Next up are four deleted/alternate scenes presented in
anamorphic widescreen. All of these scenes certainly fit in with the tone of the
finished product. Their condition is pretty poor, but they are amusing like the
rest of the film is amusing. Also included are three storyboard sequences that
are fairly easy to use while the package is closed out by the movie's
trailer.

So all in all, Top Secret! is a mixed bag from Paramount. Above
average extras with below average tech for a movie that has lost a great deal of
its luster equals a disc that you should certainly rent before buying.